


the dog days are over (so you’d better run)

by suzukiblu



Series: everybody knows we're just a couple animals [4]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Blackwatch Era, Blackwatch Genji Shimada, Blackwatch Jesse McCree, Blood and Injury, M/M, Pre-Fall of Overwatch, Self-Esteem Issues, Slow Burn, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-30
Updated: 2018-06-30
Packaged: 2019-05-30 23:03:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15106622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suzukiblu/pseuds/suzukiblu
Summary: Himari can’t fly, and can hardly hop. Moving too much at all hurts her. Ziegler mentioned that there were things that could be done to help daemons in her condition, but the idea of hisdaemonbeing trapped in a body like his . . .Genji hadn’t taken it well.Genji hadn’t taken it well atall.





	the dog days are over (so you’d better run)

**Author's Note:**

> STILL WASN’T DONE WITH THAT UST, FOLKS.

Genji couldn’t say when he’d started spending time around McCree outside of missions, but knows it must’ve been after the incident with Lupe. He still remembers her warm and wounded weight in his arms, her fur against what little skin he has left. 

How close McCree had needed to move in to grab her. 

That’s the closest Genji’s been to anyone not a doctor since Hanzo and Goro killed them. The closest that he’s been conscious for, anyway. 

McCree’s carried him, before. He doesn’t remember it very well, but he knows it happened. 

.

.

.

“What’re you looking at?” Lupe demands rudely, and the capuchin daemon previously staring at Genji holds his hands up and huddles down on his human’s shoulder. 

Genji ignores the entire exchange and slices through another training bot. It’s either ignore it or threaten someone’s life, and Reyes won’t take him out on missions if he goes around threatening other agents and if he doesn’t go out on missions he’ll go _insane_. He already feels cooped-up and crazy from the past three weeks spent without an excuse to go kill anyone, he doesn’t need to do anything to make that time stretch longer. 

“Ain’t nobody around here got manners anymore?” Lupe huffs, dancing around Genji’s legs so close he barely avoids them touching her, and McCree laughs. Everyone on base knows Lupe belongs to McCree, but she keeps following Genji around as close as if she were his own daemon. Closer, in fact, since she’s a good twenty feet from McCree right now. She seems to be able to go a little farther away since her fall, though she only does it when she’s following Genji. 

Well, at least as far as he knows. Maybe she follows other people when he’s not around. 

He doesn’t really know how to take it, either way. 

“Hey, watch your six,” Lupe says, and Genji hurls a fistful of shuriken without even thinking and hears the familiar static crackling of a broken training bot as it hits the ground. “Nice one, partner!” 

He thinks about answering her. There’s no reason he shouldn’t or couldn’t. 

He still doesn’t, though. 

.

.

.

Ziegler’s doing maintenance, although she calls it a check-up. Genji’s sitting on a doctor’s table either way, chest plate open and Himari huddled down small in his hands--she’s too weak to perch properly, with her legs the way they are. Neither of them likes her out and exposed like this, but Ziegler’s the only one who’s been able to help. 

“How are you feeling?” Ziegler asks them in a cruelly gentle voice. Genji spares half a shrug in response, and Himari huddles down a bit smaller in his hands. 

“Lonely,” she says. Genji’s shoulders tighten, and he doesn’t look at Ziegler at _all_. He’s not the lonely one. He’s the opposite of lonely--all he _wants_ is to be left alone. 

But he’s not the one who’s hardly seen the sky in months. 

“Have you considered spending more time outside of your compartment?” Ziegler says. 

“No,” Himari says, somehow finding a way to get even smaller. Genji barely resists the urge to wrap his hands around her completely and hide her from view. 

“Perhaps you should,” Ziegler says with that cruel, cruel gentleness. 

.

.

.

“I’m sorry,” Himari says. Genji doesn’t answer her for a long time, even though they’re alone in their bare bunk. Eventually, though, he turns away from the door and lets the plate in his chest slide open. Himari twitters softly, more surprised than anything else. Genji’s done a lot of things that surprised himself since Hanzo and Goro killed them, though, so that’s nothing new. 

“We will . . . work up to it,” he says slowly. 

“Okay,” Himari says, gingerly slipping out into his waiting hands. 

.

.

.

Himari can’t fly, and can hardly hop. Moving too much at all hurts her. Ziegler mentioned that there were things that could be done to help daemons in her condition, but the idea of his _daemon_ being trapped in a body like his . . . 

Genji hadn’t taken it well. 

Genji hadn’t taken it well at _all_. 

.

.

.

“You oughta be more careful,” McCree says, doing his damnedest to stop Genji’s arm from bleeding oil and blood all over the damn place. Genji’s too tired to argue. Arguing would mean talking, anyway. 

McCree doesn’t really have room to talk, though, since he’s plenty bloody himself. 

They’re close enough that McCree could put a hand over the compartment in his chest, but he doesn’t. 

Genji’s not sure why part of him can’t stop thinking about that. 

.

.

.

“Didn’t know you were out here,” McCree says with a low laugh from the door. He’s carrying a bottle of whiskey and is a little drunk, Genji thinks; so’s just about everyone inside. 

It’s a party. He can’t imagine why McCree would expect him to be _in_ there, but maybe he just didn’t think he’d show up at all. He wouldn’t have, but Ziegler promised him a week off from therapy if he showed up, and he _despises_ therapy. The psychiatrists are definitely the worst part about Overwatch. 

It’s probably stupid to be around McCree right now. It’s stupid to be around him in general, but Reyes wants them to get along and McCree, for some reason, seems to want that too. Genji doesn’t want anything but his vengeance, but still keeps finding himself allowing McCree around him anyway. 

“Woulda come out sooner if we had,” Lupe says as she comes through the door behind McCree and pads out onto the balcony, and Genji’s lips thin behind his mask. 

She’s the real problem, of course. McCree is nothing compared to his daemon. 

He still doesn’t even know what she is. 

“You even _want_ to be out here?” McCree asks curiously. It’s better than being inside, so Genji isn’t going to complain. 

He could answer McCree. Part of him wants to. That’s an increasingly familiar feeling, for some reason. 

For reasons he doesn’t like to think about. 

McCree cleans up his messes and sticks around despite how little attention Genji gives him, and Genji . . . well, he’s willing to give him a little attention, if that’s all it takes. 

“Gonna take that as a ‘no’,” McCree says, and steps up to the railing beside him as he lights his cigar. “So . . . Angela or Gabe drag you here? Gonna guess Angie, Gabe woulda told me not to drink otherwise.” Genji frowns, not understanding, and McCree seems to realize what he’s said and laughs at himself. “Ignore that. Please. You want a drink?” 

Genji shakes his head. Alcohol doesn’t do him as much good as it used to; he’d get sick before he got drunk, more likely than not. 

“Okay,” McCree says, taking a swig off the bottle himself. Lupe is looking at him. Genji pretends not to notice her, though she’s hard to ignore. Somehow he’s gotten-- _used_ to her, almost. It’d be strange if she weren’t here. 

It’s strange that she _is_ here, at the same time. 

“What, you ain’t the party type?” she says. Genji would laugh, if he still knew how to laugh. It’s . . . ironic. Yes. 

If they’d met Jesse McCree and Lupe a year ago, it would’ve all been so different. It would’ve all been . . . 

Genji feels that fluttering in his chest that he can’t really feel, and nearly goes over the railing. It’s right there; he could be back in his room in five minutes. Less if he hurries. 

If it were a year ago, McCree might be there with him. 

Genji’s fingers twitch on the railing--the real ones and the fake--and McCree looks out over the water, taking another pull off his bottle. He would taste like whiskey right now, if Genji could taste him. If it were a year ago. Another lifetime ago. But it’s not, and Himari is caged up in his chest and someone else’s daemon is at his feet, acting like she belongs there, and the someone she belongs to is standing much too close. 

If McCree were drunker, Genji might try something. Drunk enough to forget this tomorrow, or at least drunk enough not to trust his memory, or . . .

That’s a little fucked-up, isn’t it. 

“How’s your girl?” Lupe asks. “She ain’t bothered by the noise?” 

“She speaks to you more than I do,” Himari says quietly into her comm. Lupe’s ears perk. Genji wonders if she heard that. 

It’s true, Lupe does speak to him a lot. He and McCree aren’t close enough to justify it, but she does it all the same. Maybe she knows what Genji thinks when he looks at McCree. Maybe McCree is thinking things when he looks at him. Maybe--

No, that’s stupid. There’s nothing left in him for anyone else to want. 

“That a no?” Lupe asks. Genji stares down at her for a long moment, and she wags her tail like she thinks she’s charming. 

It’s dark here. No one else is on the balcony. 

He doesn’t trust McCree, but he trusts everyone _else_ on this base a whole hell of a lot less. Even Ziegler hadn’t carried Himari all the way back to base and stayed by his side the whole way. 

Genji lets his chest plate slot open, and Himari lets out a soft sound, barely discernible past Lupe’s louder startled one and McCree choking on his whiskey. Genji pretends he didn’t do anything and steals the whiskey to take a swallow. It won’t do him any good, but--

But. 

“Oh wow,” Lupe says, practically dancing in place. “Oh wow, oh wow, look at _you_.” 

“Look at you,” McCree breathes. Himari curls in on herself, fanning her remaining wing out to hide her crumpled legs and the stub of the other. Lupe stills and stares at her like she’s about to snap her up and swallow her whole. The back of Genji’s neck prickles. 

“Your feathers are mighty pretty,” Lupe says, tone surprisingly reverent. Himari twitters in surprise, then hides behind her wing again. 

“Your fur is lovely,” she says shyly, and Lupe sits back on her haunches and makes a delighted sound, her tail wagging. If a bird could blush, Genji’s sure Himari would be, and something in his chest feels strange and scarred and twisted up. 

He just wanted to know what the whiskey tasted like. Just wanted to let Himari see the sky a little bit again. He hadn’t been prepared for them to _like_ each other. 

.

.

.

It’s not a fight, because fighting implies some method of actual communication, but Genji still goes out of his way to avoid McCree and Lupe for the next week while Himari whispers soft things in his ear. 

They’re not soft. They don’t have _room_ to be soft. 

“She probably would’ve thought _I_ was pretty, before,” Himari says wistfully, and Genji mutilates another training bot. 

.

.

.

McCree is a big, broad-shouldered man with dark, lovely eyes and big hands. Genji could kill him, but he could kill Genji too. He smells like cigar smoke, or whiskey, or leather, or gunsmoke, or--

Genji doesn’t trust him, but he’s starting to think that McCree trusts _him_. 

Shouldn’t a Blackwatch agent know better? 

Shouldn’t anyone? 

.

.

.

“Long time no see, partner,” Lupe says as Genji walks into the briefing room. McCree is polite enough to ignore him; his daemon, clearly, is not. 

Genji feels nothing flutter in his chest, because there is nothing to feel anything with there. He walks past them and sits down on the other side of O’Deorain and Boyd. It’s better to stay distant. He’s gotten stupid, shown too much softness, let McCree find out just where to _shoot_ \--

“Fine,” Lupe huffs, and then curls up at his feet like she belongs there. Genji thinks about kicking her. Killing her. Killing _them_. A lot of things more violent than the situation calls for. 

Instead he tucks his feet underneath the chair, not close enough to touch, and Lupe huffs louder in frustration. O’Deorain watches them curiously, wearing a smile that makes Genji want to never, ever end up on her operating table. 

Reyes shows up and starts talking. If that heads something off or not, Genji doesn’t know. 

Lupe stays at his feet the whole time, either way. 

.

.

.

“You know we don’t _want_ nothing, right?” McCree asks him later, in the hall. Genji gives him an incredulous look. Everyone _wants_ something. “Not like-- _dammit_ , Shimada, don’t look at me like that. You ain’t gotta turn tail and run just ‘cause you don’t _hate_ us.” 

That sounds exactly like a reason to turn tail and run to Genji, but he doesn’t. McCree is in close enough to touch him again; to lay a hand right over the plate in his chest. He doesn’t, because of course he doesn’t. Why would he want to? 

It’s not a year ago. McCree’s right. There’s nothing in Genji for someone like him to want. 

There’s not much in him at all, when it comes down to it. 

McCree smells like gunsmoke today. 

.

.

.

“Aren’t you lonely too?” Himari asks like it’s a real question. 

Obviously they both already know the answer.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr!](http://suzukiblu.tumblr.com/)


End file.
